A splash in the river
Thai Kitchen brightens downtown’s offerings
A splash on the river
Thai Kitchen brightens downtown’s offerings
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
A group of abortion opponents holds a prayer vigil in front of the New Women’s Clinic on San Pedro Avenue. Photo by Mark Greenberg With reproductive rights hanging in balance, a new set of regulations undermine access to abortion providers This is the second installment of a two-part story on abortion rights in San…
JURASSIC PARK RANGERS
Jurassic 5: bringing a hip-hop flavor to Lollapalooza. Courtesy photo After a six-year hiatus, Lollapalooza is back. The brainchild of Perry Farrell returns with a solid lineup, including Jane’s Addiction, Audioslave, Incubus, and The Donnas. In its previous incarnations, Lollapalooza often maintained a hip-hop friendly vibe, featuring acts like the Beastie Boys, Ice Cube,…
THE TOLL OF COAL
Wyoming’s Powder River Basin provides CPS with about six million tons of coal each year. Huge excavating machines and steam shovels dig out the coal, which is crushed and stored until unloaded onto about 100 railcars that transport it to San Antonio. Photo by Jill Morrison. CPS’ new coal plant will provide San Antonio…
SONIC OUTLAW
Helio Creed Courtesy photo When dealing with cultural anomalies, people often toss the word “genius” around these days, which can be a tad bit misleading. Our geniuses didn’t invent written language, devise calendrical systems, or discover gravity. They clone sheep in test tubes, build bigger and better A-bombs, and design ridiculous machines that only…
DIRTY LAUNDRY
It likely will be a cold day in hell before the state comes clean about its top polluters There is a scene from an old “Twilight Zone” in which a futuristic earth has become as hot as a convection oven: The power grid has failed due to voracious energy demand; people, stripped to their slips…
SOUND AND THE FURY
a week on the scene IT CAME FROM AVENUE D Q: When exxxtreme rap group 2 Live Crew came to SA to be as nasty as they wanna be, who hosted the show? A: Sin 13. Q: When MC Paul Barman came to spit kick his Ivy League lyrics last year, whose stage held the…
WHAT DOES CLEAN MEAN?
City Public Service contends it is among the lowest emitters of pollution in the nation, but that does not suggest its coal-fired plants are clean; it just means that many industries and utilities are incredibly dirty. Due to the enormity of the information in the EPA’s database of 1,949 U.S. industries and utilities, we could…
ABORTING THE RIGHT OF CHOICE
Jeffrey Hons, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Central Texas, stands outside the main office in San Antonio. Photo by Mark Greenberg The Texas legislature is trying to make it impossible for women to recieve abortions. Surprise: They’ve almost succeeded. The courtroom is silent, save for a few whispers.…
AN EXPERIMENT IN PARALLEL
A scene from Alfred Leslie’s The Cedar Bar. Courtesy photo. ArtPace kicks off its ‘On Screen’ art film series with ‘The Cedar Bar’ Alfred Leslie’s The Cedar Bar (2001) is an experiment in parallel – a difficult visual and auditory amalgam intended to splinter the two primary senses of sight and sound. The film…
KING PONG
Back in the late ’70s, when I was 7, I discovered I had a talent that was second to none. I was exceedingly good at Pong, the monotone videogame that poorly imitated table tennis. The graphics were nothing more than rudimentary geometric shapes, and the sound effects consisted of two different pitched beeps, but VIDEOTOPIA…
ARTIFACTS
News and notes from the San Antonio art scene While most of the local art community patiently waits for its abused livers to shrink back to acceptable pre-CAM proportions, let us take a quiet moment to reflect. Certainly, the more than 70 shows delivered in just 31 days served the purely artistic, yet pathological need…
WAITING TO TAKE OFF
Jean Reno and Juliette Binoche in Danièle Thompson’s Jet Lag. Photo by Marion Stalens. Modern chemistry is in the Air France in ‘Jet Lag’ An effervescent import, Jet Lag could be called a “freedom film,” not simply to appease American hegemonists who tried to rename french fries, but also because this French romantic comedy…
NEW REVIEWS
Left to right: Real-life lovebirds Jennifer Lopez and Ben Afflect star in the stunningly stupid film, Gigli. Courtesy photo. Gigli Dir. Martin Brest; writ. Brest; feat. Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Lainie Kazan (R) It’s pronounced “G-lee,” like “really.” Like really, really bad. But, as in most bad films…
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Metropolis Dir. Fritz Lang; writ. Lang, Thea von Harbou; feat. Alfred Abel, Gustav Frölich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Heinrich George (NR) It’s too reductive to call Fritz Lang’s 1927 film a landmark of cinematic science fiction. Although it is undeniably a sci-fi movie, Metropolis is more significant as the first silver-screen expression of…
STILL PLAYING
Bad Boys II Dir. Michael Bay; writ. Ron Shelton, Jerry Stahl; feat. Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Gabrielle Union, Joe Pantoliano (R) Bad Boys II holds true to form: It is 90 minutes of guilty summer pleasure, with an hour-long A-Team episode tacked to the end for good measure. Actually, this one has more kicks than…
BEAUTIFUL FREAK
Eels frontman Mark Everett heading to a parallel universe…on a riding mower. Courtesy photos Eels’ mastermind Mark Everett tries to convince himself that these are the good old days Mark Oliver Everett knows what it’s like to be Prince. Granted, Everett (aka E), leader of the idiosyncratic L.A. rock band the Eels, isn’t a…
HEAT TREATMENT
The White Heat: young punks who have actually heard of the Stooges. Courtesy photo The White Heat raises temperatures with its raucous sophomore release Old-fashioned rock grit and an unmatched collective wit make White Heat (formerly Slobber, formerly B Side Project) a force to reckon with. I caught up with the boys for my…
